The fight to get out
Our ten years of "refuse" were filled with an intense struggle for spiritual development, for spreading of the Torah studies and for leaving USSR.
First of all, we abandoned everything that was connected with Russian culture.
The only thing that was difficult for Luba was to stop celebrating the New Year. But it was not too difficult: for a few days she felt some kind of discomfort, like saying goodbye to her childhood. And then every hard feelings passed. After many years, in a hospital bed, she said to me with gratitude: "If I wouldn't meet you, I would be part of Russian culture". And it was completely unacceptable for her. Not the literature, not the films on TV or in the cinema, not the theater, not he trips to exhibitions - nothing could replace the Judaism and Torah for us.
We studied on Saturdays and weekdays. I studied constantly, Luba - when she could. She attended classes for women, taught by visiting rabbis. Luba enjoyed these classes, learned lot and also met her friends. I must say that in Israel we also have not returned to a "big world" culture. Only ten years after the aliyah, We got to Kyiv (I started working as an envoy of the Sokhnut), and my "boss", Shlomo Ne'eman invited us to his house to watch "Pokrovsky Gates". And from that moment on, we began to remember the old, and to be interested in what had been done in the field of culture during the twenty years that we had not touched it.
So, during the "refuse" years, we were completely disconnected from the Russian culture.
Our daughter was growing up. We tried to study Torah and Hebrew with her also.
We entered the circle of "refuseniks". All of us brought our children to be together. We gathered for Hanukkah, for Purim we set up "Purimshpils" (Purim shows). I wrote funny and satiric scripts with rhymes, and Luba, using her pedagogical talent, staged productions with children. All the adults wacthed and enjoyed these shows (all the children were actors).
Every day we thanked God for the fact that the powerfull Soviet authorities (which stubbornly did not recognize His existence), did not wipe me off the face of the earth and did not put me behind bars or in a camp.
For me, my life and the life of my family is a bigger miracle than the Exodus from Egypt. But, like any miracle, it has its own hook in the real world. In 1973, the American Congress adopted an amendment to the law on the favorable treatment of trade with the USSR. It must be said that the impetus that led to the adoption of this amendment was the struggle of American Jewry for their brothers, trapped behind the Iron Curtain - struggle which was launched by the Jewish Defense League. And "The League" was awakened by the sensational "aircraft case" - an attempt by a group of Soviet Jews to hijack a plane and fly to Israel in the 1970th year. As soon as the Jews, until that moment considered forever lost, suddenly raised their voice and ceased to be "Jews of silence", the Jewish world of the USA and Europe also woke up. Protest demonstrations began and political activity increased. "Let my people go" - was the most popular slogan of the entire Jewish world.
All this made possible the teaching of the Torah and other Jewish activities in Soviet Union.
Since 1982, I have had lessons every day in the apartments of Jews all over Moscow. It used to be that they also gathered at our place, in our one-room apartment, in the room or in the kitchen.
The police rushed in to our apartement twice, registered all those who had gathered, which meant for them to be blacklisted, sometimes - to lose their jobs.
The youth that came to my lessons, were always hungry. Their parents did not observe "kashrut" in the houses, so they didn't eat at home. Luba fed all of them, and also cleaned the house after them.
Eight months after I started reading Rashi, I started teaching Torah.
For me, there were people around to learn from. My teachers were Rav Avraham Miller - a former student of Chofetz Chaim, Reb Benyamin Katznelson, who studied at the yeshiva before the revolution, Gregory Kontorovich - young man, mathematician. Especially helped me Eliyahu Essas, head of our "refusenik" community, who subsequently, unfortunately, began to persecute me.
After a while, our lessons took place every day. We studied Torah, prophets, Talmud. On Sundays many people came to the "Parashat Shavua" (weekly chapter of Torah) lesson.
There was also a weekly lesson in the sinagogue in Maryina Roshcha. All this was considered by the authorities "a prohibited activity", and sometimes the police broke into apartments, registered all those who had gathered, in order to report them to work.
It was a period of national upsurge, the awakening of interest in their tradition of people who did not know the words"Torah" and "Mezuzah".
Since 1981, visits by foreign Jews have become constant. People came as tourists. They were supposed to be with their groups and go on excursions with them, but they did not join the excursions, and instead that, came to the addresses of the "refuseniks", that they had recieved before.
There taught lessons, and also brought things that could be sold and ensure our existence in the absence of work.
I had a connection with "foreigners" through Eliyahu Essas, who gradually, with the permission of the authorities, grew into a political figure. Later, Essas stopped supporting the idea of Aliyah (immigration to Israel), although at that time neither he nor the visitors said anything against Israel. On the contrary, national feelings were strong.
Basically, my connection with "the abroad" has developed, in the beginning, with the Haredi world. Well-known rabbis from England and America came once every two weeks . Rav Moshe Aizeman - mashgiach of "Ner Yisrael" organisation, author of books published by the Artscroll publishing house, Rav Haeman - who was the largest specialist in kashrut, Rav Hanoch Erentroy - head of the Beit Din in London.
In addition to the lessons of the halachic plan in a narrow circle, open lessons were also held for everyone who was ready to come.
After Essas left USSR in 1986, conflicts (largely provoked by himself) began among his students and followers.
Visitors began to tune in to the fact that mass lessons are dangerous. They began to refuse to come and teach Torah in the apartments .
I was personally attacked, for reasons that were not entirely clear. And at some point I decided to stop communicating with the ortodox visitors from abroad.
Bur many people abroad had my phone and one day someone from Americain Reform community called me. I agreed to meet. The visitors were only interested in Jewish activities...
I understood that nobody will help me in my mission of spreading of Zionism among Soviet Jews.
What does it have to do with Luba? She carried it all on her shoulders.
I was afraid that the Soviet government would not tolerate the expansion of Judaism and Zionism, and would detain me at the airport or take me off the train and escort me to some place much more remote than Minsk, but for me there was no doubt that it was necessary to get to every Jew who was ready to approach Judaism. And, despite the fact that by that time the two brave Jews who tried to organize the “All-Union Ulpan” were already serving time in labor camps, I still went to buy a train ticket. This was the start of my journeys, which lasted about three years. Wherever I went, in every small apartment that I entered, there were sixty, seventy Jewish people. It was all like crossing the sea. Yesterday's slaves and robots woke up from the dope with which the country of atheism poisoned them, keeping the borders of the state closed, like the hearts of people and their minds. The Jews aspired to freedom, first of all, to the freedom of the spirit. How can everyone, not everyone, know what percentage of the Jewish population, which was officially declared to be less than two million, woke up, but it was a mass phenomenon. I cut off all relations with those of the Jewish activists who tried to close themselves in a narrow circle, and, having created a yeshiva for seven or eight people, immerse themselves in the study of the Talmud. I thought it was a betrayal of my people. And when the people rise up - "a firebrand saved from the fire" of catastrophe and Stalinism, I thought that everyone must also rise from his seat and stand with those who awakened.
I never moved alone - all the time one of the"secret officers" was nearby. They changed, like Bulgakov's heroes, emerging from the darkness and taking on a variety of guises, located next to me in the compartment, or on the next seat on the plane. Often they tried, under one pretext or another, to enter into a conversation with me, sometimes, pretending to be foreigners, they spoke in English, but the accent betrayed them. They never tried to exhort or recruit - their goal was to intimidate.
It was hard to pray on the road. Most often I had to pray in the vestibule, despite the cold and soot. I don’t know what everyone who passed me, "dressed" in Tallit and Tefillin, thought. History will never tell us about it now. Riga, Leningrad, Kyiv, Tbilisi… Airfields, train stations, taxis, private traders – cars that I would never get into today, especially at night.
Luba was waiting for me at home, and hours of waiting turned into gray hair.
In all these places that I travelled to, I spoke about the land of Israel and the people listened. For Jews from the Western world, the spiritual rebirth in theSoviet Union was an even greater miracle than it was for me. "He who experiences a miracle cannot appreciate it". Many of them approached the Torah and began to observe the Jewish tradition. During my journey to Riga I heared that we had finally received permission to leave SSSR. But this happened later...
We have been demonstrating since 1985. There were many demonstrations.
We passed on the steps of the Lenin Library metro station. Dark, scary. People gathered to watch us and most were against us. Somehow someone shouted to Luba: "Lady, you are dressed in a fur coat, where are you going from here?"; True, Luba was wearing a fur coat - one of here relatives gave it to her. But what does a coat and a homeland have to do with one another?
Participants of the demonstrations were ussialy seized, but then they were released. That was uncomfortable, and most of the time - scary.
It was hard for Luba, but she went out to these demonstrations.
In 1987, the "Poor Relatives" group was organized - they were people whose parents did not sign a document that they had no material and moral claims to them (like our case). As is now clear, this group was an initiative of the KGB with the purpose to direct the struggle in a direction that was blocked by a completely logical law. And if "the West" asks - the Soviet authorities can always answer: "What do they want? We have a law."
Demonstrations took place near the offices where "parents who did not give permission" worked. The Dutch consul, a young man in a blue coat and a red scarf, often appeared at the demonstrations to support us.
Then, demonstrations were scheduled in the center of the city, near the Lenin Library metro station.
We came out from the metro (the subway) with yellow stars. But the police didn't let us go to the demonstration - they ussially grabbed us on the way to the place of the demonstration.
One time they pushed me into a bus where I was beaten.
I was brought to the police station several times.
This activity (albeit instigated by the KGB) played a big role in the struggle for emigration.
A demonstration was planned in defense of the right of the Kolchinsky family to leave USSR. The demonstration took place right in front of Uvir. Twenty people with posters. Unlike other demonstrations, the authorities reacted very harshly. They sent against us young security officers, who scattered us instantly. They grabbed me by the hair, dragged me along the pavement, that fortunately was covered with ice, and dragged me into the gateway. I was beaten by them, of course. But the worst thing was that they shouted: "Which Israel?! You will go to Siberia!"; And their words were so convincing... Then I was escorted to the 26th police station of the city of Moscow, where I ended up with a young man from Minsk, Marik Kogan. We were kept in the police station until the evening. Luba came "to pull us out", but it didn't work out. By evening, I was accused of foul language and fined, and Marik was imprisoned for hooliganism for 15 days. I met with foreign lawyers at Volodya Kislik's apartment and told them about what had happened. I returned home, and Marik remained to serve his term. But he did not intend to give up and began a hunger strike. Two days later, when it became clear that he was serious, he was told that he would be deported to Minsk on an escorted plane. At the same time, he was offered to take him somewhere to eat. Wherever he wants. Marik said that no restaurant would suit him (because of the Kashrut issues), and there was only one place in Moscow where he was willing to take anything in his mouth. And what is this place? Meshkov family.
We lived on Ryazansky Prospekt, on the tenth floor in a one-room apartment of 13 meters plus a kitchen. At that time we had three kids. We didn't open the door by a bell, only by a knock. Of course, before opening the door, we checked through the peephole who was standing in the corridor: a friend or a policeman? I was not at home when there was a knock on the door. Luba looked through the peephole and saw Marik, who did not arouse her suspicions. But when she opened the door, next to Marik, flanked by him, were two huge security officers, (they looked solid - not like the punks who beat us).
Marik outlined the essence of the matter, and Luba let them in. The security guards stood at the door, and Luba gave Marik buckwheat porridge. Not the best food after a hunger strike, but this was the main food eaten by those who kept kashrut in Moscow. Also potatoes, fish, bread for 22 kopecks (I had the ingridients for bread baked in the Soviet Union, and a loaf for 22 kopecks was baked without fat, so those who keeped Kashrut could eat it).
Marik ate, said thanks, and left with the escort. All this time Luba talked only to Marik and completely ignored the guards.
Remember: I was not at home.
1984, 1986 - our children:
Michal was born, and two years later - Jonathan.
Jonathan was brought in with a navel infection. The nurse came and gave injections to a tiny lump, it was scary.
A month later he was circumcised. Reb Motl Lifshitz did the circumisation, he was the only "Mohel" for the whole Soviet Union. Everything went well, but when the doctor came to her regular visit - a woman of about forty-five - in a white coat, she washed her hands with soap, went up to the child... She asked: "What is this?"; Naturally, circumcision was meant in USSR. Luba explained that this was a traditional circumcision, with all the precautions. But it did not help. The doctor said: "I'll call the police now." I don't know how Luba reassured her. Of course, she gave her money, and not a small sum for those times.
Three children in one room of 13 meters - it was not easy. But Luba managed. She lived on coffee, and constantly drank this "healing" drink.
Our family began to be considered large. We received a green book, which gave us the right to buy groceries without standing in an endless lines, but we did not always use it.
I didn't stop learning. And sometimes on the same kitchen table where Luba was swaddling Yonik late in the evening, I was studying the Gemara with two or three students. For Luba, all this was more than acceptable. It was, I would say, naturally.
In 1984 Masha, our eldest daughter, went to school. But she felt very uncomfortable there. There were problems with not going to school at Saturdays... At first, Luba got certificates through a doctor that the child needed an extra free day, but then we decided to switch to home schooling. Nobody was asked... We just stopped sending our daughter to school. At first, there was a conflict with the authorities, but we were quickly left alone. Masha, in addition to all subjects, taught Hebrew with me, and with my mother - English.
When she came with me to the synagogue on holidays, she was the only child who opened the Torah in Hebrew and read. She sat while everyone was praying, with a small chumash "Torah Tmima" in red cover.
Finally, we got angry and decided, together with other refuseniks (everything was planned - we only had to join) to go again to a demonstration near the metro station of the Lenin Library. We took our children with us, what was an unjustified risk. Yonik, who was two years old, was tied in front of me in what is today called "minsa" in Hebrew. The guard was guarding me all the time. At some point, I started screaming, because Isuddenly felt that if we will not leave USSR immidiately, the Soviet authorities will destroy us. I must say that at those times there has been a great support of our family around the world. For example, before Gorbachev's visit to England, members of parliament were going to sit in a cage in the center of London, demanding that our family be released. So Gorbachev canceled his visit to London.
So at some point I started screaming. The cameras started to click right there. So, photos of a screaming man with a child were on TV all over the world. After that, friends from other countries called us, asking if everything was in order.
But the Soviet authorities were not touched. We were kept for another year.
Nina Zakharovna fell ill. The doctors wanted to amputate her leg. Luba tried to help her, but to no avail. Nina Zakharova has died. Subsequently, Luba was very upset that she could not save her.
In 1989 we received permission and decided to leave to Israel as soon as possible. My mother at that moment decided to go with us, and applied for permission to leave. Then, a woman called from Uvir and said in a joyful voice that they were connecting our documents with Mina Izrailevna Brodskaya (my mother) and they would reconsider the issue of our family. I said we are against it. Then my mother was offended, but no one knew what would happen if we would need to apply all the documents from the beginning.
We gathered in a few days and, if it wouldn't be Pesach, we would have been in our homeland in a week. And so - in two.
Cardboard boxes and suitcases, no big luggage.
Renounce citizenship was mandatory from the point of view of the authorities. So I went to the post office and paid seven hundred rubles for each member of the family, which was an unimaginable sum.
I was busy with public affairs. Luba was packing, practically, alone. She bought something: what she could, what caught her eye, what we had money for.
When the suitcases were taken to customs on the evening before departure, the customs officer opened the suitcase, saw the old children's pajamas and lost all interest in the inspection. And Luba, at fear and risk, put in this suitcase my paintings, for the export of which there was no permission, and old books that could not be taken out of the country. This helped me a lot. All my life I enjoyed the fruits of her determination. And she loved the paintings very much, and they hung in our house in Israel.
In the morning, in a taxi to Sheremetyevo Airport, we drove past the house on Taganka, where Luba lived and went to school. She said, "This is the house where I lived".